Stop it, you, you’re spoiling me!
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Okay, the text is in an archaic alphabet. Based on the B-shaped letter E and the M-shaped S, I’d say it’s from around Corinth. So far I’ve got:
σανατο δε αρνιαδαξ αροπον τον δολεσε?αρεσβαρναμενον παρα ναυσιν επα?θθοι ορ hοεαισι πολλον αριστευτον τα καταστον οϚεσανα
Something about Arniadax who did something at the ships. I can’t read most of the letters clearly and I can’t make any sense out of most of the words. Have you got a transcript? I could translate that, I guess.
Edit: There’s an S-shaped B, so it’s from Corinth. I also want to believe it’s written as verses, but I’m really not sure.
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I’m no good with go terms (have yet to start trying to read my Japanese go books), but I bet you’ll like this website, featuring a dictionary of Japanese go terms.
Σᾶμα τόδε Ἀρνιάδα· χαροπὸς τόνδ᾿ ὤλεσεν Ἄρες / βαρνάμενον παρὰ ναυσὶν ἐπ᾿ Ἀράθθοιο ρhοϝαῖσι, / πολλὸν ἀριστεύ{τ}οντα κατὰ στονόϝεσ(σ)αν ἀϝυτάν.
Wikipedia says the stele was found in Corfu, has been dated to the early 6th century BCE, and is in Homeric hexameter.
Ah, I’m so tempted to start learning kanji again… because they’re distinct pictures rather than strings of letters, there’s a sort of fun “collectability” about ingesting them. I’ve got to keep myself focused .__.
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I’ll have you know that learning kanji can be highly addictive…
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Don’t I know it! I’ve been there…
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Not Homeric, just hexameter. The dialect is doric, as one can see by Σᾶμα for σῆμα and the use of the letter F for /w/, that was out of use in the Attic-Ionic dialects. It says:
“This is the tombstone of Arniades; pretty-face Ares destroyed him while he was fighting (I guess?) at the something something ships by Aratthos, him, who was by far the best at the … moaning?” Something like that, I’ll check the translation you provided…
Edit: Aah, so ἀfύταν must mean battle.
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Damn, where do you people come from? People who like learning kanji, people who like doing tsumego.
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Pretty-faced Ares destroyed him, he who was by far the best at moaning
Are you a yaoi writer? 
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Greek, yaoi, same same.
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take your free catamite on the way in
What’s a catamite, Walter?
Hmm, I don’t know that reference.
In The Big Lebowski, Donny asks what a pederast is. I honestly had to look up catamite, right now. It’s not a story the philologists would tell me.
But I’m kinda disappointed about myself, I could have done better with that inscription. I should have expected the first words to either mean ‘here lies’, ‘this is the grave of’ or ‘the council has decided’. Can you hit me with another?
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Work In Progress
Challenge 1
In Latin, numbers are adjectives and, like all adjectives, agree with noun that they describe. In this table I’ve put them in their masculine, dictionary form.
| International | Numeral | Cardinal | Ordinal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I | unus | primus |
| 2 | II | duo | secundus |
| 3 | III | tres | tertius |
| 4 | IV (IIII) | quattuor | quartus |
| 5 | V | quinque | quintus |
| 6 | VI | sex | sextus |
| 7 | VII | septem | septimus |
| 8 | VIII | octo | octavus |
| 9 | IX | novem | nonus |
| 10 | X | decem | decimus |
| 11 | XI | undecim | undecimus |
| 12 | XII | duodecim | duodecimus |
| 13 | XIII | tredecim | tertiusdecimus |
| 14 | XIV | quattuordecim | quartus decimus |
| 15 | XV | quindecim | quintus decimus |
| 16 | XVI | sedecim | sextus decimus |
| 17 | XVII | septendecim | septus decimus |
| 18 | XVIII | duodeviginti | duodevicesimus |
| 19 | XIX | undeviginti | undevicesimus |
| 20 | XX | viginti | vicesimus |
| 21 | XXI | viginti unus | |
| 22 | XXII | viginiti duo | |
| 23 | XXIII | viiginti tres | |
| 24 | XXIV | viginiti quattuor | |
| 25 | XXV | viginiti quinque | |
| 26 | XXVI | viginiti sex | |
| 27 | XXVII | viginti septem | |
| 28 | XXVIII | duodetriginita / viginti octo | |
| 29 | XXIX | undetriginita / viginti novem | |
| 30 | XXX | triginita | |
| 31 | XXXI | triginta uno | |
| 32 | XXXII | triginta duo | |
| 33 | XXXIII | triginta tress | |
| 34 | XXXIV | triginita quattuor | |
| 35 | XXXV | triginta quinque | |
| 36 | XXXVI | triginta sex | |
| 37 | XXXVII | triginta septem | |
| 38 | XXXVIII | duodequadraginta / triginta octo | |
| 39 | XXXIX | undequadraginta / triginta novem | |
| 40 | XL | quadraginta | |
| 41 | XLI | quadraginta unus | |
| 42 | XLII | quadraginta duo | |
| 43 | XLIII | quadraginta tres | |
| 44 | XLIV | quadraginta quattuor | |
| 45 | XLV | quadraginta quinque | |
| 46 | XLVI | quadraginta sex | |
| 47 | XLVII | quadraginta septem | |
| 48 | XLVIII | duodequinqaginta / quadraginta octo | |
| 49 | XLIX | undequinqaginta / quadraginta duo | |
| 50 | L | quinqaginta |
| International | Adverbial | Multiplier | Distributive | Fractional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | semel | simplex | singuli | |
| 2 | bis | duplex | bini | dimidius / semis |
| 3 | ter | triplex | terni | triens |
| 4 | quater | quadruplex | quaterni | quadrans / teruncius |
| 5 | quinquies | quinquiplex | quini | quintans |
| 6 | sexies | sexuplex | seni | sextans |
| 7 | septimes | septimplex | septeni | septans |
| 8 | octies | octuplex | octoni | octans |
| 9 | novies | novemplex | noveni | nonus |
| 10 | deciens | decemplex | deni | decimus |
| 11 | undecies | undecimplex | undeni | undecimus |
| 12 | duodecies | duodecimplex | duodeni | uncia |
| 13 | terdecies | terdecuplex | terdeni | tertiusdecimus |
Challenge 2
| Reign (AUC) | Anglicism | Title | Meaning | Praenomen | Meaning | Nomen | Meaning | Cognomen | Meaning | Agnomen | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 218-244 | Tarquin the Proud | Rex(?) | King | Lucius | from lux (light) | Tarquinius | from Estruscan Tarchuna | Superbus | proud, splendid | ||
| 672 | Sulla | Dictator* | Dictator | Lucius | " " | Cornelius | Perhaps fr. cornu (horn) | Sulla | unknown | Felix | fortunate |
| 708-709 | Julius Caesar | Dictator Perpetuo | Dictator for Life | Gaius | fr. Gavius fr. PIE “rejoicing” | Iulius | Maybe fr. *Iovilios (descended fr. Jove) | Caesar | debated, see Wiktionary |
(*) Dictator legibus faciendis et reipublicae constituendae causa (“dictator for the making of laws and for the settling of the constitution”)
Imperial names
726-767: Augustus / Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Emperor Caesar, Majestic Son of God)
794-807: Claudius / Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
Tiberius = of the river Tiber
Claudius is perhaps from a Sabine word
Germanicus = of Germany
832-834: Titus / Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus
I don’t have an etymology for Titus
Flavius is perhaps from flavus (golden)
Vespasianus is from Vespasianae, a town
849-851: Nerva / Marcus Cocceius Nerva Caesar Augustus
Marcus = of Mars
I don’t have an etymology of Cocceius
Nerva is from nervus (vigour)
891-914: Antoninus Pius / Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius
I don’t have an etymology of Aelius.
Hadrianus is from Hadria, a city
I don’t have an etymology of Antoninus
Pius = loyal
[I expected more to write about from that name.]
946-964: Septimius Severus / Imperator Caesar Lucius Septimius Severus Eusebes Pertinax Augustus
Septimius = the seventh
Severus = severe
Eusebes = a type of gem
Pertinax = tenacious
991: Balbinus / Imperator Caesar Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus Pius Augustus
Decimus = the tenth
I don’t have an etymology of Caelius
I don’t have an etymology of Calvinus
I don’t have an etymology of Balbinus
eh, screw it
I was just thinking, you can classify languages by speakership as:
-
Super-major: 1,000,000,000+ speakers (this is just English and Mandarin). English is a global lingua franca whereas Mandarin is just the national language of a very populous country, so there is an interesting contrast here.
-
Major: 100,000,000+ speakers (Hindi, Spanish, French, Standard Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Urdu, German, Japanese). These are either languages of populous countries (like Indonesian) or post-colonial lingua franca (like Spanish.)
-
Sub-Major: 10,000,000+ speakers. This is your average national language with official and popular status within one or two countries, like Italian. Also your typical big Indian language (eg. Marathi or Tamil.)
-
Minor: 1,000,000+ speakers. These languages are usually not national lingua franca and can be quite obscure. The only examples I can find are Catalan and, maybe, Walloon.
-
Sub-Minor: 100,000+ speakers. Interestingly, it’s easier to find examples for this category. Members include Welsh, Irish, and Greenlandic.
-
Miniature: 10,000+ speakers. At this point, there are doubts that the language can survive into the next century, but often still hold official status and privileges. Scottish Gaelic is a good example.
-
Sub-Miniature: 1,000+ speakers. A Swiss village dialect, perhaps?
-
Obscure: 100+ speakers: A normal tribal language, eg. in Australia.
-
Moribund: 10+ speakers: Spoken usually by a small group of elders.
-
Hyper-Moribund: 1+ speaker. Almost extinct.
-
Extinct.
In general, popular languages are either: Indo-European (most European and Indian languages, and Iranian), Sino-Tibetan (Chinese languages), or Krai-Dai (South-East Asian).
Very notable outliers are Arabic (Semitic), Korean (Koreanic), Japanese (Japonic), and Tamil (Dravidian).
The many indigenous languages of the Americas, Africa, and Australia are in contrast often very obscure.
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"When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism centuries ago, or that whether we argue for or against the teaching of Latin and Greek, our argument is sure to be studded with words that have come to us from Rome and Athens, we get some indication of what early Chinese culture and Buddhism, and classical Mediterranean civilization have meant in the world’s history.
There are just five languages that have had an overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. They are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. In comparison with these, even such culturally important languages as Hebrew and French sink into a secondary position."
– Edward Sapir, Language
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Is this even Greek?